Mass Protests And Foreboding Fate

No one is doubt that Nigerians are undergoing excruciating pains that are unprecedented in the nation’s history. We don’t need any international financial organisations to inform us that an uncertain future stares us in the face. The monsters of poverty now stalk citizens as they grapple with the grueling task of providing basic necessities. It’s obvious that Nigerians are confronted with a startling awareness of an approaching midnight of frightening uncertainties.

Unexpected present

Nigerians rise in hope every morning to be confronted with the need to deploy increased desperateness to survive the times. Having seen the end of former President Muhammadu Buhari-led government, millions of citizens have found themselves in Siberia, with many wishing they find their way back to the Buhari era that was once condemned and abhorred. Prices of foodstuffs have climbed to the roof and are heading for the skies. All promises by the government to bring down prices of foodstuff have been more verballed than actualised.

Identifying the removal of fuel subsidies as the cause of current deteriorating living conditions, analysts have continued to paint a grim picture of an approaching apocalypse that may set an unimaginable crisis. For the first time since independence in October 1960, mass hunger, made worse by cascading insecurity, has become not only the bane of current democracy but also a national threat.

The German dramatist, Bertolt Brecht, says that an empty stomach does not know the presence of royalty. It is on the basis of these rumbling millions of stomachs that protests have been organised by the ‘Take It Back (TIB) Movement’ with the hashtag: //EndBadGovernanceNow.  Less than three days to the commencement of protests, both the federal and state governments are not resting on their oars to dissuade the protesters from embarking on a venture that may turn out bloody. More worrisome to the government is the clandestine leadership behind the TIB protests that could spill into mayhem that may be difficult to be controlled by the security forces.

Feared protests

Ahead of the protests billed to take place between August 1-10, the government has accused certain individuals behind the planned protests. More disturbing, groups have emerged – some say induced- in some states to oppose the protests. The anti-protester group have made photo headlines in both traditional and online media platforms and pleading with their fellow distraught citizens to exercise patience and give the government enough time to resolve some of the difficulties afflicting citizens.

Tinubu, according to the anti-protest group, is not the cause of the current hardship. Like some government officials, this group is pleading with the organisers of the protests to postpone the planned action that may exacerbate conditions of the people that may culminate into violence. Though acquiescing with the position of the pro-protest group that economic hardship is scraping off hope from ordinary citizens, the anti-protest minders have called on the government to move fast and end the current hardship.

No one is in doubt on what the position of the government is. Overtly or covertly, some presidential media minders, including the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Barr Nyesom Wike, have described the planned protests as politically motivated. Governors across political divides are agitated over the hunger protests and have expressed hostility. If there’s any hope of averting the protests, a letter to the FCT Minister by the FCT branch of the TIB Movement requesting for the Eagle Square to be used as venue of the protests; such a hope has fizzled as no government would bow down to demands from a faceless organisation mouthing revolutionary ideas. The nation’s security forces have warned organisers of the protests to shelve their action and embrace dialogue, describing the protests as a foreboding that must be avoided.

Stretching our luck

In the heat of all these, while the government is willing to dialogue with an angry citizenry making threatening wildfire on social media platforms, the refusal by TIB Movement protests to come forward for negotiation has made the federal government point accusing fingers to the opposition. With memories of EndSARS protests still fresh, there are anxieties that the protests may turn out battlegrounds, with both opponents and supporters of the protests engaged in violence.

Many Nigerians, especially those sympathetic to the government, doubt the sincere motives behind protests. With leaders of the TIB Movement unwilling to come out in the open for dialogue, there are fears that the intention of the protests is to recreate the windstorm of public outcries against bad governments in many African countries, as presently being experienced in Kenya and Uganda.

The time to think that Nigerians can become Ugandans and Kenyans is yet to come. Ours is one of the few countries in the world where the oppressed worship their oppressors. Chained to   ethnic and religious ropes, Nigerians dream of a better tomorrow where lies a blissful future. We dream of walking into a future that is devoid of challenges, but while waiting for that future, we resort to helping ourselves, using religion and ethnicity as ladders.

These are challenging times for both the led and leaders. With corruption solidly enthroned, those who are not privileged are confined to the dustbin of poverty. Nigerians, through the National Assembly, must look into the basis of our nationhood by critically reviewing the 1999 Constitution. We have sat for so long on the precipice and must not stretch our luck too far to undermine the future of ‘Africa’s Giant’ that is on the throes of being awoken from slumber by the rumbling stomachs of millions of its citizens.